Disneyland Paris’ Castle Just Received a Stunning Makeover After Nearly Two Years Under Renovation

Though each of the Disney parks around the globe is chock full of unique qualities that make them worth visiting for casual and die-hard Disney fans alike, it’s tough to deny that Disneyland Paris has the most enchanting castle of them all. The French park is home to Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty Castle), a whimsical take on the original Disneyland castle in Anaheim that was overseen by Walt Disney himself before his death in 1966.

To celebrate the park’s 30-year anniversary this month, Disney Imagineers have unveiled the results of the castle’s nearly two-year renovation, which took a whopping 50,000 hours to complete and experienced setbacks due to the ongoing pandemic. However, during the park’s closure in summer 2020, Tracy Eck, artistic director at Walt Disney Imagineering Paris told Architectural Digest that construction teams were able to work during the day when the park was empty, instead of throughout the night when work traditionally occurs.

Even though France is home to a whopping 40,000 chateaux, you might be surprised to learn that Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant is the country’s most visited castle — no doubt thanks to the park’s 320 million visitors since it opened in 1992. To make the pink and blue castle stand out among the rest, Eck revealed in a video on the park’s YouTube channel that a team of Imagineers, painters, electricians, carpenters, gilders, tile makers, and roofers worked diligently to boost its signature charm, including hand-painting the entire castle with 14 shades of pink, nearly 20,000 slate roof tiles, and around 41,200 sheets of gold leaf brushed by hand thanks to expert goldsmiths.

Eck enlisted the help of craftsmen who primarily work on historical monuments to help restore the castle, replacing some of the signature blue towers and gold detailing with cranes. Having worked on the castle’s creation as a young lighting designer back in 1990, Eck told Architectural Digest, “This is a Sleeping Beauty Castle, it’s the story. The only other one in the world is in Anaheim, California. Because we were entering Europe, we had to design and adapt to where we were. There are so many fantastic craftsmen here and the castle had a completely new design, and there was a lot of research that went into it.”

Of the extensive renovation, she added, “Everything received some kind of attention and every surface was touched in some way. We had to upgrade the electrical system, incorporate new lighting designs, [and] re-mount special effects.”

Eck is clearly proud of the work done on the gleaming castle, telling AD, “We are the number one tourist destination in Europe and this is impressive and for me, a big wow moment.”

So if your travel plans bring you to Paris, don’t sleep on the chance to spend a day immersed in the magic of Disney and to get a close-up view of this beauty in action.